


a lesson in vulnerability

by VolunteerFieryDantooinian



Category: Riverdale (2017)
Genre: Flu Season Sucks, Fluff, Homelessness, Intense fluff, M/M, Panic Attacks, Sick Jughead, Sickfic, Sneaking Out, Winter Break, trans Jughead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 18:57:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9916427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolunteerFieryDantooinian/pseuds/VolunteerFieryDantooinian
Summary: Winter sucks, and Jughead sneaks into his boyfriend's room really late at night.





	

Jughead sighs frustratedly and chucks another rock at Archie's window, hoping to hell that it doesn't break. Nothing. It's dark outside, freezing and rainy, and he hates it more than anything in the whole world. Even more than dead things. 

Jughead feels like someone is watching him, or something, and it's utterly freaky, and he throws another rock with increased urgency. His hands shake, and his breathing is catching in his chest, wheezing and tight like a rattlesnake trapped in a cardboard box. 

The 4 layers of clothes he's wearing aren't enough to shelter him from the cold, and it had seeped into his bones, slowly, until his teeth were chattering something fierce and his entire fucking body just  _aches._ It really, really sucks, and he hopes to hell that Archie opens his window. Jughead coughs, a painful, dry sound that echoes through the rain. It's drumming like a heartbeat on the roof of Archie Andrews' house, filling his ears and making him dizzy. 

"What the hell, dude?" Archie's tired voice cuts distantly through the rain, and he doesn't realize that he's actually walking up to him, not yelling from his window. Archie's face softens when he sees him, concern plain on his face. "Come inside. You're soaking wet, Jug, you should at least dry off a little."

"Ok." Jughead's voice is quiet and hoarse, barely intelligible over the freezing-cold rain. He takes Archie Andrews' hand, and he leads him inside, through slick grass and half-dry porches. Before he knows it, he's sitting on Archie's bed in a daze, narrowly avoiding questions from Fred.  _"Why were you standing out there in the rain?" "You look pale, Jughead, you alright, kid?"_ And the like. Jughead is freezing and soaked, trying not to have a breakdown in Archie's bedroom, and utterly fucking exhausted.

He's had a rough day.

"Jug, you look like shit." 

"Thanks, _Archiekins_ , that's always nice to hear." Jughead quips back, giving him a glare that lacks true anger or bitterness. Archie laughs at this, flashing a smile so brief yet so bright it's almost like looking directly into the fucking sun. Ugh. He feels like shit, too.

"I think you'd feel better if you took a hot shower and a nap, Jug. You look sick as hell." He gently takes Jughead's arm, and his hand is super, super warm. Jughead nods silently and sits down on the floor, frustratedly going through his bag of things and trying to find something suitable for sleep. He fishes out a pair of boxers with a bunch of Batman symbols on them, an old, intricately-strapped sports bra, and a vintage-soft, worn NASA shirt that he loves to no end. 

Everything hurts worse as he makes his way down the hall to the bathroom, exhausted. He closes the door and undresses as carefully as possible, sighing in relief when his binder finally came off right when it seemed it was truly stuck.

The hot water feels incredible as it pours over his shoulders, and he leans against the wall, sleepy and sick and in pain. The steam seeps into him, and he coughs painfully, dry and wheezing. It sucks. The coughing, not the showering, he thinks. He'd been showering at school a lot, but it was nothing compared to this. He runs his fingers through his dark, wet hair, water slicking his shoulders and hands and entire body, and he almost accidentally shampoos his hair twice as many times as he needs to, but Archie was right. Hot showers were fucking fantastic. 

He turns off the water before he wants to, and dries off slowly, tiredly, and by the time he's dressed, hair carefully up in a towel, he's shivering again. Jughead makes his way to Archie's room, and sits down shaking on his bed. He coughs once, twice, three times, enough that it leaves his chest tongue-bitingly painful, and he curls close to Archie, who's warm in every sense of the word and looking at him like he's a shivering puppy he found on the street. 

Before Jughead can say anything Archie has a warm, gentle hand pressed to his forehead, eyes soft with concern. He frowns slightly. "You've got a fever, Jug." Archie says softly, and Jughead scoffs mentally.  _Way to state the obvious,_ he thinks, and wraps his arms around Archie's waist, coughing a few times, hard enough to make him feel sick. 

"Hey, Jughead?" Archie says softly, after a few moments of silence.

"Yeah?"

"Why were you standing outside my house, sick as hell, in the middle of the night? While it was raining, too." Archie inquires, and Jughead feels his face heat up, or at least, more than it already was. Tears prick at his eyes, and he blinks them away, taking the time to accidentally launch into a coughing fit before he can answer. Archie holds him through it, rubbing his back gently, murmuring words of comfort that were barely intelligible. 

"I.. Arch, I don't have anywhere to stay. I'd been living at the Twilight until they fucking bulldozed it, but ever since, I've been a bunch of different places. Abandoned houses, our old treehouse, the like." He mumbles, hot, sickening shame rising in his chest, and the look Archie gives him is enough to make him break.

Jughead breaks down sobbing in Archie Andrews' bedroom, shoulders trembling, gasping huge, awful sobs, crying harder than he's ever cried before, and Arch wraps his arms around him, shushes him gently, running his fingers through his damp, soft hair. 

"Juggie, I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry." Archie says once Jughead has mostly stopped crying, eyes soft. Jughead feels sicker now than he did before, and he coughs painfully, fever-haze drifting across his mind. He was dreadfully, awfully sick, tired and aching. Jughead coughs harder, more painfully, again and then again. "I'm making you some decaf coffee, ok? You need something to help your throat, and something is telling me you're probably not particularly hungry." Archie says quietly, and Jughead nods, crawling further up onto his bed. Archie half-tucks him in, blankets consuming his thin frame.

Jughead floats in and out of half-sleep, half-wakefulness until Archie comes back, dreaming of nothing but blue-black water and the pictures he'd seen from Jason's autopsy. He tosses and turns, and when Archie opens the door he bolts up with a frightened little sound. 

"Holy fuck!" Jughead gasps, skin crawling, but it dies away after a few seconds. "Remind me to never look at those case photos again," he rasps, "particularly anything of Jason." Archie chuckles softly and hands him a steaming mug, blessedly warm against chilled hands. He takes a sip, and sighs quietly, always keeping his eyes on Archie. He's terrified there's something behind him, or he'll look away and something else will be there. It feels like he's gonna fucking die. He's not gonna fucking die. Right?

Jughead sips his coffee again, the hot sweetness of it a blessing to his sore throat, and it feels good to have something in his stomach. It's not food, but it's something. It fills him with warmth, but he still shivers, eyes fixed on Archie's hand in his own like it would kill him to look away from it. Jughead takes a deep drink of his coffee, trying to hide how his hands were trembling. He remembers Jason's dead eyes and sets down his coffee mug, gripping Archie's hand tighter, coughing painfully a few times as he leans forward and presses his face into Archie's shoulder.

"What's wrong, Juggie?" He inquires softly, and Jughead shakes his head, letting out a sound of fear and pain at the same time. He shakes in Archie's arms, occasionally taking a sip of coffee. 

"I'm  _scared,_ Arch." Jughead's teeth are chattering as he pulls his shivering self closer to Archie. "Think I'm gonna die. Not 'cause I'm sick, just.." He trails off, nausea beginning to rear its ugly head. He takes in a huge breath and finds he can't draw any more of them, starting to hyperventilate desperately. Jughead feels desperately sick and desperately bad, and he launches into a coughing fit worse than the last one. 

"Jug, baby, please calm down, you have to breathe." Archie says softly, and Jughead tries, desperately, but he can't. "Juggie, Jason is dead and buried. 6 feet under. You're safe, ok? Zombies don't exist. You are not going to turn around and see him. You're not going to die, baby, it's okay." Archie soothes, rubbing his back rhythmically, and presses his coffee mug into his hands gently. Jughead takes a sip, and while the warmth feels good on his throat it doesn't soothe the overwhelming nausea. He takes another sip, hoping it'll work better this time, and he relaxes as the sick feeling recedes a little.

Archie rubs his back, gently stroking his hair and murmuring words of comfort, and Jughead exhaustedly pulls him down onto his back next to him, curling up against his chest as he gets sleepier and sleepier. He coughs a few times as he adjusts to the change in position, harsh and painful, and he coughs again and it doesn't feel like he's going to stop. And Archie continues rubbing his back, thumb brushing the spot between his shoulder blades and making him shiver. 

Jughead starts to doze off, exhausted, Archie's shirt warm and soft against his cheek, legs sprawled on top of his. 

It's not as bad when he coughs this time, and though he knows sitting up would help, it wasn't worth it. He was too exhausted, truly, and as he hacked intensely, he thought about sleep.

It only took a few minutes for it to come for him, draping over Jughead like a blanket of darkness, and he dozed off, sick and trembling with cold and leftover fear, but content.


End file.
